Follow Your Child’s Fitrah

Most parents are concerned about their children’s future especially for them to be successful in this life. They invest significantly in almost anything that can give them hope that the children will turn out to be geniuses.

This last couple of decades has shown a horrifying truth. Yes! The children have excelled academically! Many have even secured good-paying jobs! And indeed, they have achieved ‘success in this life’. These children are supposed to be happy as they have achieved whatever their parents have set for them. But most of them are still bewildered, confused and lost. They feel emptiness…… and have this nagging feeling that something is not right with them. They do enjoy whatever comfort and luxury they have but they still feel that something is missing in their lives and that what they have is not complete.

Lucky are those who start to realize that success in this life is not the ultimate goal. In the process to achieve ‘success in this life’ some of them become part-time Muslims! Some of them become “some time Muslim” but most of them are only Muslim by name. Most of them live as Muslims (they accept Allah is the only God and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is the last messenger of Allah) but they are not living their life as true mu’min.

It is not their fault, because what they are is what they were raised to be. They were taught when they were younger that success is based on material achievement. Piety is only for Sheikh, Imam and Ustaz. They were taught that achieving good grades is the most important task when they were in school.

Their minds were set to accept this ideology as “Okay” and good enough. It is okay not to solat! It is okay not to read the Quran! It is okay not to learn how to be a true mu’min. They were told that as long as you get yourself a good degree and a good-paying job then you are already successful. It is okay if you commit a sin because you are still young. It is okay if you were naughty with boys and girls. Is okay to go ‘clubbing’ and have pre-marital sex for as long as you keep it discrete. As long as you did not get the girls pregnant, it is okay!. Modern and permissive parents are even okay when their daughters bring their boyfriends over to sleep in their houses. The children were indoctrinated into believing that as long as you learn how to solat, you fast during Ramadhan, you sedaqah, then you are okay! You are still good children! Yes! It Is Okay.

But these children have done what they did do not feel it is right even after they have accomplished all the targets their parents have set for them especially when they become adults and start having children of their own. They then start to feel incomplete. Something is missing in their lives. When they start to listen to lectures given by sheikhs or people knowledgeable in Islam they cower in shame and confusion. Every Ramadhan they start to ask themselves why they have not continued to read the Quran because now they no longer know-how. They did get A’s in their Islamic subject but eventually have forgotten everything they learnt. When their parents pass away they have to rely on some stranger to take care of their parents’ corpses. They would want to perform the cleansing of their parents’ corpses on their own but they don’t know-how.

Now that they are no longer children and have children of their own, they now have the chance to choose the future of their children. Is it going to be the same cycle of indoctrination of ideas for their children as it had been with them? Or will they follow their children’s fitrah? It is the innate and inborn tendency of all children to know Allah, to believe in the Oneness of Allah and to live life as per Allah’s and His Messenger’s direction. My advice is Follow Your Childs Fitrah! InsyaAllah You Will Find Yours!